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Language and Literature Studies

Studies of Literature

Albanian Literature

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Writers League of Kosovo, in 2012, has published the set of ten literary works of Adem Demaçi. In this set of Adem Demaçi’s literary works are included all artistic writings - stories, novels, poetry and drama, with the exception of two fragments of his novel S’ka paqe ndër kasolle, seized by the police during the first arrest of the author on 19 November 1958, which were titled Maliqi and S’ka paqe ndër kasolle. In this set are not included numerous journalistic writings and conversations of Adem Demaçi, even though their number of pages and of volumes is larger than of those published. Due to full and entirely correct recognition of this literary and journalistic creativity, and of his social, cultural and political activity it is made possible to distinguish three phases in Adem Damaçi’s creativity. The first phase extends up to his first imprisonment, on 19 November 1958; the second phase up to his release from prisons on 21 April 1990, and the third phase since his release from prisons up to present. Not only by his language and style, and not only by artistic power of his characters, by the tension of their relationship, by the riches of his embodied meditations, and not only by all factualness, the novel Snakes of blood is artistically and historically scorer novel in Albanian literature. With all its linguistic - artistic value and with all of its historical – literary importance it will be able to be estimated properly and sufficiently if kept in mind that it was written and published at a time when in the state of Albania was reigning the doctrine of socialist realism and when in Kosovo was reigning party- state conformism not only in politics but also in creativity. Adem Demaçi as both, intellectual and creator is a denier of socialist realism and the party and power conformism.

Adem Demaçi, is not only prominent political activist, a man who made an era, but also a creator of rare artistic talent. Adem Demaçi, author of dozens of stories and a novel (Gjarpijt e gjakut, 1958), before being jailed (1958), and after release from prison (1990) a writer of the novels: Libër për Vetmohimin (1994) Heli e Mimoza, Nëna Shegë e pesë gocat, Shkrumbnajë e dashuri, Dashuria kuantike e Filanit dhe Alb Prometeu (a cycle of five novels, written during 2007-2012, i.e. before and after the declaration of independence, speaking of the war and after war in Kosovo), of the poem Tung vargu im, the only work in verses, and of historicalpolitical drama Politika dhe pushka, unless he sacrificed his literary talent for the sake of the national cause, he would become a writer of enormous proportions, no matter how hypothetical this might seem, Kosovo’s Kadare. Adem Demaçi had all the prerequisites to become as such: the talent, imagination, observation ability of the vital phenomena, gift to create human characters, rich language, laconic style, deep knowledge of popular phraseology, mastering of the language as a system of expressive means in all its levels, and so on. Adem Demaçi, rather than postmodernist, even though in his work postmodern elements are not lacking, especially in Libër për Vet Mohimin and Dashuria kuantike e Filanit, as a writer he might be called perhaps a postrealist, proponent of a new realism, which the French philosopher Roger Garaudy called “réalisme sans rivages” (realism without shores). Literary work of Adem Demaçi is open to life, to world, to nature, and to society and invites the reader to an open communication, out of schemes and clichés that he cannot withstand.

Shaban Demiraj (1920- 2014) is one of the most well- known Albanian linguists. He is an author of a series of works from different areas of the Albanian linguistics. Demiraj was for a long time professor in the University of Tirana and the chief of the Department of the Albanian Language for 27 years (1962- 1989). His activity, as a university professor from 1955, in the first period was focused mainly on the morphology of ntemporary Albanian. His textbook about the Albanian morphology was in use for about two decades in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia and brought forth important theoretical innovations concerning the explanation and the definition of the grammatical concepts and categories by bringing forward the characteristic aspects of the grammatical structures of the Albanian language, and thus setting aside several viewpoints borrowed from other languages. Besides, successful efforts were made in this text to better define the morphological norm of the literary Albanian, which was on the way of being crystallized in those years. The main domain of Demiraj’s activity is historical grammar of the Albanian language. After a long series of contributions on specific aspects, he wrote the synthetic work “Gramatikë historike e gjuhës shqipe” (Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language) (1986, 1166 p.), which has been highly appreciated regarding its method, its broad vision, the richness of the arguments and the personal achievements of the author. In this work, the continuity of the grammatical evolution of the Albanian language is followed and explained from its beginning up to nowadays, the linguistic and extralinguistic reasons for the loss of some inherited grammatical features and the appearance of new ones are investigated, and the evolution trends of the Albanian grammatical structure both as an Indo- European and Balkan languages are investigated. The multiple observations and the rich material collected systematically by Prof. Demiraj as a result of his research in the area of the historical grammar produced several important works, such as “Gjuha shqipe dhe historia e saj” (Albanian Language and his History) (1988; 2nd ed. 2013; an Italian version was published by the University of Calabria in 1997), “Fonologjia historike e gjuhës shqipe” (Historical Phonology of Albanian) (1996), “Gjuhësi ballkanike” (Balkan Linguistics) (Shkup, 1994; also published in Macedonian in the same year), which make up an original synthesis of the achievements of Albanian and foreign linguists in these areas. Such works as “Prejardhja e Shqiptarëve nën dritën e dëshmive të gjuhës shqipe” (1999); English version “The Origin of the Albanians (Linguistically Investigated)” (2006); “Epiri, Pellazgët, Etruskët dhe Shqiptarët” (“Epirus, Pelasgians, Etruscans and Albanians”) (2008) contain not only a reasoned summary of the actual state of art, but also the new contribution and visions of the author. His vast research and publication activity has rendered prof. Demiraj a well- known and highly appreciated scholar all over the Albanian world as well as in the international scientific world.

The old Albanian literature (mid-16th – mid-17th century), which includes the philosophical–theological treaty Cuneus prophetarum by Pjetër Bogdani (Padua, 1685), was born and developed as a literature mainly of religious content for the needs of the Catholic religion. Regardless of the topic, this literature was created in a certain historical, cultural and social environment, namely that of northern Albania and the Albanian population that lived there. Hence, the data provided in this book constitutes an invaluable source through which we have the possibility of learning more about the way of life and the functioning of this part of Albanian society of that time.
Interesting data on the situation of the Albanian language of that time is to be found in the preface of this work. The author urges Albanians not to let their language and science degenerate, but just as other nations do, they should make efforts concerning its evolution and development. But the alarm for destructing the mother tongue is linked with author and his contemporaries’ high conscious more than with the reality. In fact, Bogdani´s work itself proves that Albanian at that time had expressive possibilities equal to those of the Italian language. Not only the expressive and lexical richness, but the syntactic structure of phrases shows a high degree of development and elaboration in the Albanian language of that time.
Examining the foreword of the book, we can learn that efforts were being made to unify the language and to develop one literary variant based on the dialect of the town of Shkodra. Bogdani also tried to adjust the language of his work according to this town’s dialect.
Relations with Italian and Croatian intellectuals are clearly demonstrated in dithyrambic poetry and in the dedications at the beginning of the book. In this work, we also find data on Albanian mythology. Cuneus prophetarum occupies a special place in Albanian literature, because it is the first original work of prose, unlike previous writings, which were mainly translations.

The authors propose a comparative analysis of the Italo-Albanian tale "Jugalla and orku" recorded at San Benedetto Ullano in 1967 (original version), with a new variant of the same tale recorded in San Basile in 2017 using the same text. This article aims to emphasize the differences between the two tales and the two linguistic variations by different points of view (phonetic, morphology, syntax and lexicon).

This comparative analysis of two Albanian translated versions of the famous poem "Loreley" by the prominent German lyrical poet Heinrich Heine has been carried out considering the basic principles of the translation of a poetic work. It is self-evident that the translator of poetry faces more difficulties than the translator of prose, due to his work with the poetic form, style, the number of lines, versification, euphony, rhythm and rhyme, figures and symbols, wordplay and the play with sound, etc. Nevertheless, the translator of poetry must aim at a translated version that gives the impression of sounding as the original, first and foremost, and then that his translation be appropriate to the aesthetic values of the original form. The tale of Loreley, an oral folk figure of the Rhine River, a nymph that is as charming as she is fatal, remains Heine's most famous poem. Its distant origin, and the musical composition of the well-known German composer Friedrich Silcher since 1837, made possible that "Lorelei" be sung in the nineteenth century generally as a folksong, that continues to be referred to, outside Germany, as "a German folk song". Thus, this poem is related, first and foremost, with two events: with Silcher's composition, and with the fate it had during Nazism when a ridiculous decision was made to publish it under the note "unknown author". These events are a very intricate relationship due to the fact that this poem, when it was turned into music, pierced so deeply into the national consciousness that its author could not be erased from the minds of the people although in such a time he was declared a persona non grata and the publication of his works strictly forbidden. As a consequence, the Nazi failed to vaproize Heine's "Loreley", succeeding only in erasing hte name of the author. This poem, which must have been written aroung the end of 1823 and which was published without a title when the author was alive, is the second poem in the poetic collection titles "The Homecoming", a cycle of poems that was included in the renowned work "Book of Songs", published in 1827.

From the very beginning of its existence literary narration developed thematic substance, subjects and characters from folklore, transforming them in many cases. At other times, those elements were left the way they were found in oral history. In our case, we shall deal with two forms of transposition of oral narration in written form, but only referring to thematic transformations and stylistic and explicit usage of this literature by Albanian novelists, that is, by the most renowned ones like Ismail Kadare, Rexhep Qosja and Anton Pashku. These are the authors who use folkloric archetype in their novels on three levels; as thematic reiteration (I. Kadare - “The Three- Arched Bridge” and “Doruntine”), as folkloric discourse (A. Pashku - “Oh”) and as explicit and cited regeneration of folklore (R. Qosja - “Death Comes to Me From Such Eyes” and “One Love and Seven Sins”).

The object of this paper is the analysis of three main novels of Ismail Kadare: Chronicle in Stone, Questions of Lunacy and The Fall of the Stone City, where the references to this city’s cartography, as well as to its citizen’s are explicitly obvious. Based on a wide theoretical set since the Antiquity to the present days, which reviews the boundaries between the real and the fictive, we are looking into shedding light on the amalgamation of these planes in Kadare’s novelistic poetics. The main focus of our study is the way in which a unique universe of anthropological signs and symbols, architectural coordinates, and of the psyche of this city’s citizen are transformed into an artistic matter and structure. The intensive relation that this great author creates with his birthplace in an anthropological and symbolic level, feeds a same relationship in the linguistic idiom. So, the topos of this city, which can easily be identified in the real world, is not only the product of some references to lived experiences, but also of the linguistic material used to build the linguistic discourse. It will also be argued the ways in which this mimetic world that is present in Kadare’s work does not infringe on the character of the artistic narrative.

Similar to other Muslim communities, mawlid occurs as the expression of love for our Prophet in the Albanian community. Recently, it has gained a wider place in cultural life as the written work or celebration ceremony.Mawlid is used to revive the religious life and in individual plans as signification tool for changes in all stages of life. In the beginning, it was performed in Turkish. In the passage of time, it started to be performed in Albanian which contributed to the accumulation of mawlids among the Albanians. Besides its educational character, mawlid is also a source of hope to gain intercession from Hz. Muhammed (s.a.v.), keep his name alive and commemorating him. This is one of the main motives behind survival and popularity of mawlid among the Albanian Muslims.In the light of texts of mawlids and latest research related with it, this study aims to focus on the development of mawlid as a part of the Albanian culture.

The novel I confess to the tombstone of Agron Tufa, as a fictional hypertext written on documentary hypotexts, is a novel with two narrative lines that contain stories by and about two raped women in two systems: communism and democracy. The story of the novel narrated by the female perspective turns the narrative into gynocentric discourse. The stories of raped females are given as facts, documents and recordings, as they are also taken from real files and then modified by the author.Agron Tufa with this novel turns the confessions founded in archive into a thrilling art that penetrates deep into the psychology of abusers and victims. The novel can also be read as a complaint and as a tribute: as a complaint of two women about their fates in two political systems and as an author’s tribute for the victims. The novel I confess to the tombstone of Agron Tufa combines the documents with the fabrications and the individual anamnesis with the collective amnesia, to articulate an aesthetic denunciation which is not meant to lynch, but to make a national catharsis.

Discursive Autobiographies are type of texts in which life experiences are written about tempted creations. Discursive Autobiographies are metadiegetic analepsis 'lands' that disclose personal experience of the process of creation, where communication occurs also the form of metacommunication, above all, the text as autometatext. In such cases, the authors, while talking about their work and creation process, create a kind of autobiographical prose more or less essayistic with autometatext status, text where even the deeper cogitation interpretation and criticism, empirical practice keeps the genre of autobiography. As proven, this prose model is written only at the end literary creation, especially when the author becomes authority in literature. Such temptation was proved in two discursive autobiographies of Kadare: Invitation in studio and Mornings in Cafe Le Rosand, where literature talks about literature. Diptych in question, apart from the author’s revelation the work, we are faced with the re-examination of relationship between authorial literature and of universal literature, sometimes as reading experience, sometimes as writing experience with variety of literary interferences.

In the age of great mobility recognized as an age of globalization, and ascertained as postmodern condition, phenomena are intertwined in very interesting and often un-foreseen ways. Very often we see the past and the present being reorganized in most amazing ways. In this paper I will try to describe how a novel “Kush e solli Dorunt-inën” written by famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, based on Albanian folk ballad on Konstandin and Doruntina is used by theater troops of New York and Prishtina, and brought into a play, as a means of intercultural acquaintances and understanding. The ballad has to do with the kept brother’s promise to his sister even after death, a concept of “besa - a given word - a promise” being among Albanians as quite peculiar and rec-ognizable cultural feature and also presented as such to “others”.
If, according to Raymond Williams, “work of cultural analyses should be the ‘clarifica-tion of the meanings and values implicit and explicit in a particular way of life, a particu-lar culture’”, then this is certainly one way to do so.

Art and litterature can help the writting of the history, as far as the history can stimulate the immaginative acts or fiction. “Telling” the collective “epical honor” in a discourse which is more literary than historical it is a metter of collective sensivity and of the ways how this collective sensitivity is expressed. Examples of this type of partcipation of literature in a process of writtng the history are well known from the ancian world to the nowdays, So far, Achilus has been known from the Omerus’ work. The Albanian national hero, Gjergj Kastrioti, so called Skanderbeg, has become well known by the Barleti’s work: History of Skanderbeg, more than from any other medieval cronics. Further, literary characters of Gjergj Fishta’s Lahuta e Malcis have a strong relationship with a real life. This relationship of fiction with the facts, institutionalised in the osianic songs, has been carried in the contemporary literature.Our lecture analyzes this relationship between fiction and history in the work of albanian humanist: Marinus Barletius (Marin Barleti), History of Skanderbeg. The text has been written based on the “oral narrative” of the people who lived in the Skanderbeg’s epoche and it is the first book in Albanian culture which was written based in the memory of the people. . Barletius faces the facts (which has been tolld by those who were part of the ethnic pride) and fiction (which is authorial part of creating a literary discours in a text which aims to be nonfictional text). Formally, The History of Skanderbeg is chategorised as a history (even nominally), but being written based on the memory (memoire) of the people who lived in the Skanderbeg’s epoche and connecting facts with this “aral narrative”, the texts has been often identified as a text which connects the facts with the literary diescourse in a text with a dual character: hsitorical and literary.

Sami Frasheri is one of the most prominent figures of the Albanian National Renaissance period. With the diversity and multidimensionality of his works, Sami Frasheri indicated cultural and intellectual universality. He was a great scientist that contributed to the progress of many scientific fields (natural and social) and art fields. One of the complex issues of the Balkan peoples and especially for Albanians with which he dealt more, is the beginning of the spread of Islam, which was embraced in Albanian lands, not only in its main variant, Sunni, but also in the form of different orders (tarikate), as Bektashi, Halveti, Melami, Kaderi, Sadi, Rufai, Nakshibendi, Shazeli, Mevlevi etc. In this study we tried, though concisely, to present his thoughts and views on the Bektashi tariqa, tariqah best known in Albanian lands, which found more support from Christian population than in other countries of the Ottoman Empire. By browsing, studying and analyzing the collection of the works of Sami Frasheri, we have attempted to disassociate in inductive and deductive approach and content of their submission, to draw conclusions, coming through a critical perspective, without prejudice and without prior constructions, but with conclusions that flow naturally as a result of its author's views on this tarikat.

Beethoven is a great personality of the history of human culture and Noli, in his work "Beethoven and the French Revolution", makes a powerful analysis of his character and his artistic and cultural activity. But since Noli also considers the legends (and contradictions between biographers) that are written about him, Bethoveni, in his book, is also transformed into a literary character, in a legend that "is intended to be
verified", thus "deconstructed" by Noli's research. Thus, in our paper, as it has already been seen, Betoveni was also analyzed as a literary character, in fact, as a literary figure, built little by little by the eloquent Noli pen.

The semi-centennial tradition of historical-literary studies in Kosovo has distinguished three authors of the first part of the 20th century: Fan.S. Noli, Lasgush Poradeci and Millosh Gjergj Nikolla - Migjeni. It is rare to find Kosovar researchers who have not written a historical-literary, publicistic, historical, biographical, commemorative or a literary text, without having one of these authors as object of approach. Unlike Migjeni and Lasgush Poradeci, who had their admirers among the range of authors, Fan S. Noli had admirers among all the ranks: researchers, publicists, academics and authors. From the rich bibliography of his work, it’s not difficult to notice that the researcher who has made efforts to resemble him with his life and work was no other than Rexhep Qosja. The interest for Noli derives from his original works and his translations in parallel with his national efforts and his Skanderbeg historical studies, with his polemical texts and also with his oratory. Nevertheless, the study of his work and his dedication is particularly associated with the publication of his complete work. It received characteristic and distinctive assessments, in the first place, by professor Idriz Ajeti in the ‘50s, to expand its dimensions in historical-literary studies, political treatises, polemics and intellectual assessments of professor Qosja by the end of the ‘60s and ‘70s, to continue with the studies of Hilmi Agani, Rexhep Ismajli, and to be crowned by two monographs by Mensur Raifî, and one monograph by Yll Zajmi, in the beginning of the ‘80s.

The Narrative Bricolage” is a study on four novels of Ridvan Dibra (The Nude, In Search of the Lost Child, The Legend of Solitude and The sleep on the Snow), who in the first novel ironizes phallocentrism, putting in front of each other the capture and defeat; in the second he plays with narcissism, seeking his lost paradise, or his childhood; in the third one builds a new variant (Bala) over an old myth (Hamlet, Orestes); in the fourth he shows the risk of sleeping on the snow, or the risk of
inattention in the dictatorship. In the first two decades of his creativity (1989-2009), Dibra’s fiction is characterized by ultra-postmodernism, and since 2010, exactly with
the work In Search of the Lost Child, the author makes a turn, enriching his fiction with new elements and new sensibility. Even though he has written poems and plays, Ridvan Dibra in Albanian literature has created a clear and complete profile with experimental fiction. He makes homage to the postmodernist model by following it and enriching it with new elements and sensibility. His fiction shows that he is a great experimentalist author who represents a type of literature: lab literature. There is nothing that cannot be made a fascinating literature in Ridvan Dibra's lab, which, therefore, approves the Schopenhauer’s opinion that the business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

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